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Topic: What's the purpose of octal? (Read 542 times)

I understand the situations in which binary is useful, and I understand the situations in which hexadecimal is useful. But what use is there for octal? Seems a lot of programming languages support it (from what I can tell, it's even more widely supported than binary). But why?

Some older computers (UNIVAC) were built to use the octal system. I used to work at an insurance company in Boston and they migrated from UNIVAC to IBM, their programmers need to learn hexadecimal (IBM). This was back when the programmers needed to be able to read core dumps and calculate positions in the dump to find bad data and the like.

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In conclusion, I can leave you with no better advice than that given after every sermon by Msgr Vincent Giammarino, who was pastor of St Michael’s Church in Atlantic City in the 1950s:

“My dear good people: Do what you have to do, When you’re supposed to do it, The best way you can do it, For the Love of God. Amen.”

Ok, so I was just looking more into octal and it seems exactly the same as hexadecimal except using groups of 3 bits rather than 4 (which I guess makes sense, since 3 bits can hold half the amount of numbers as 4 bits, just as 8 is half of 16). Then it's not as mystifying as I previously thought... though it still seems a bit messy (8 bits in a byte, yet 8 isn't a multiple of 3...)

[Matthew 8:26] And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.

[Job 38:1-5] Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: [2] Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? [3] Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou me. [4] Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? tell me if thou hast understanding. [5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?